


Mitosis

by BloodAndPaper



Series: The Anatomy of Sacrifice [1]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-01 21:17:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5221136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodAndPaper/pseuds/BloodAndPaper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mitosis - a type of cellular division that results in two separate cells each having the same number and kind of chromosomes as the parent nucleus, typical of ordinary tissue growth.</p><p>It starts with a shadow. Something completely indiscernible to the naked eye. If they had been looking for it, they may have caught it soon enough, but all it takes is one crack, in one brick, of the fortress that was built, for it to all come tumbling down around them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Interphase

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not going to lie to you guys. This is going to be rough. It's going to be angst filled. And it's going to be heartbreaking. However, if you stick with me until the end, I promise I won't leave your chest feeling like there's a black hole inside of it sucking all of your emotions through and dispersing them into dark matter. 
> 
> I promise. 
> 
> Also, I'm playing around with a second person narrative. It's not my favorite, but at the end of the day, it feels a lot more personal than third person.
> 
> Huge thanks to @anniezoomie for being my biology guru and making sure I didn't screw up the science stuff.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interphase – The phase in cellular division where the cell is engaged in metabolic activity and performing its preparations for mitosis. Chromosomes are not clearly discerned in the nucleus, although a dark spot called the nucleolus may be visible.
> 
> Loving Laura Hollis was never the problem. Loving herrself on the other hand, that was always Carmilla's biggest challenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so, very sorry for this... I would tell you it only gets better from here, but we all know that it's always darkest before the dawn. Carmilla and Laura will have to stumble through that darkness to find the light, but I promise...dawn will break eventually.
> 
> @carmillascape

_Interphase – The phase in cellular division where the cell is engaged in metabolic activity and performing its preparations for mitosis. Chromosomes are not clearly discerned in the nucleus, although a dark spot called the nucleolus may be visible._

* * *

 

It had started with a simple wish, and a broken heart. Well, two broken hearts actually, but one had already been damaged…

“I really wish you’d cut out the mythologizing,” you had said, mostly to yourself, because there was no way she was ever going to let it go.

“What?”

“Trotting me out like some prized pony. Carmilla the heroic vampire who saved the day.” It wasn’t your best impression.

* * *

 

In hindsight, you should have seen it coming. All of the signs were there. The longing glances. Filling her favorite nerdy mug with hot chocolate. The incessant need to protect her. You _should_ have seen it coming, but Laura Hollis had crashed into you like a tiny, hyperactive wrecking ball, and by the time the dust had settled, it had already been too late. She had wormed her way into that empty cavity of your chest and nestled in like a virus – replicating.

If you were being honest with yourself, it was a little surprising. The tiny brunette didn’t really fit into the plaster mold of artists, poets, philosophers, or musicians from your past. But when you thought about it, maybe it was never about the art. Maybe it was always about the determination. The drive. The wisdom to see the world as it was, and the desire to change it. To leave something behind that would affect generations to come. Well-written words. A composition that would move armies. Answers to the many questions that haunt us.

The little cub reporter definitely had ambition. She definitely wanted to change the world for the better, something that you would never be capable of doing. If anything, you had only had a hand in making the world the nightmare it was today.

That’s what monsters did anyway. Incite terror. You were the stuff of nightmares. The same evil Laura’s father so desperately sought to keep her from. Yet, after it was all said and done, the girl was still there, staring into your eyes as if you had just pulled the stars down from the sky and handed them to her. Her tiny hands reaching into the ether and plucking your discarded soul from the darkness, before thrusting it back in its place – figuratively of course.

It didn’t fit anymore. Having a conscience, that is. It sat like a stone inside of you, rubbing against your bones, jagged edges reopening old wounds. You had saved her – and by happy accident, her friends, and the campus, and quite possibly the world. She had looked at you like you had just ridden up on a white stallion and slayed the evil beast terrorizing her village. You were her hero. She would never believe that you had done everything for her. She _couldn’t_ believe it; that’s just not how Laura Hollis’s mind worked.

But you were no hero. You were a monster. A selfish monster that couldn’t bear the thought of losing another person you’d grown so fond of. Laura had never really seen your true colors, but even after you’d fed from her, after you’d butchered the evil witch – thus saving Hansel and Gretel One and Two – she’d still looked at you as if you’d hung the moon.

There was something to be said about her childish innocence. Something you hadn’t been ready to give up.

From the earliest forms of affection – the pet names that had at first been meant to irritate, somehow shifting into terms of endearment – to staring brazenly into her eyes and pulling her into that first kiss. That simple sliding together of innocent flesh, warm and wet. Even though her lips had been salty from her tears, it was still the first moment in your very long life that you had allowed yourself to have a little hope.

You had fled Silas with her, had sworn to yourself that you would protect her at all costs, because that form of innocence was rare in this day and age. Laura was a precious gem, pure and untainted by the hands of man, albeit unshaped and clearly imperfect. The edges would smooth themselves eventually, with life, with experience. But at the time, she had been raw, plucked from the innocent earth and laid into your experienced hands. And though she had been young and naïve, she had still looked at you like you’d been set on this earth solely to save her from the monsters that meant her harm. But you had been one of those monsters, and while you had meant her no harm, the lines that your existence had blurred for her should have been enough.

Because if _you_ could change for the better, then why couldn’t the rest of the world? Why couldn’t every monster be so reasonable? Your actions had set the whole thing in motion, and you were not arrogant enough to believe that you hadn’t had a hand in all of this. You were the first smudging of the lines between good and evil. That hope you had unwittingly transplanted in her mind, was what would inevitably cause the walls of your cell-like relationship to dissolve. But you’d both been too wrapped up in the novelty. You’d both been blind.

And ignorance really is bliss. Your relationship with Laura – while clearly imperfect, highly impractical, and against logic itself – had been blissful. So you had stayed inside the disintegrating walls of the romantic bubble that had formed around the two of you, and you had just fallen, completely and irrevocably, in love with the tiny girl.

You had existed for the taste of her mouth. The feel of her lips sliding against your own. Silk and fire, that she had soothed with a tongue that did nothing to quell the rising flames. Your purpose in life had become staring lovingly into her honey-colored eyes. Stealing the breath from her lungs with your fingertips, and replacing it with the breath from your own.

The way her fingers had curled into your hair, weaving in between silken strands and tugging, had never failed to make the dead muscle in your chest twitch. As if yearning to beat once again, if only for her. Laura had made your body rebel against its own biology. Centuries of instinct had been subdued under her inexperienced hands. Your fangs had ached in protest at the blood bags, yearning to be sunk into warm flesh, but Laura would not have condoned that. Laura had wanted you to rise above. Laura had wanted you to be better.

And for a few blissful moments, you had actually believed yourself capable of such metamorphosis. If a caterpillar could become a butterfly, then why not you? Metamorphosis, as it turns out, is not quite so easily achieved.

But Laura hadn't seen you as the slithering, crawling _thing_ that you were, she had seen you as the beautiful fluttering of bright colors that you _could_ have been. And it was only fair that she give to you the same false hope that you had given to her.

You hadn't been positive that you could be her hero, but surely you would have shattered everything that you had been, trying to be just that. You had killed your mother. You had slain a god. You had been willing to sacrifice yourself for her, and while your motivations had not been not entirely altruistic, the intent had been there. You had  _wanted_ her to believe that you could be better, so that you could believe it yourself.

Her gaze had fluttered between your eyes and your lips, still so curious, still so hesitant, as if she hadn't been able to believe that a creature as terrifying and beautiful as you could have ever cared about someone as _average_ as her. But Laura had never been average. Laura would never be capable of being average. The fog that the world had enveloped her in had clearly been obscuring her view. But you had seen her crystal clear. And it hadn’t mattered that her father had been so overprotective that she had almost started to believe that she couldn’t exist without the protection of another. So much so that she had overcompensated at every turn to prove just the opposite.

And it hadn’t mattered that the amazon had only intensified that need in Laura, that need to prove herself. Or that Laura had surrounded herself with people who were _stronger, smarter,_ or _infinitely more put together._ Laura had surrounded herself with people she had loved and had cared about, but also with people whom with she had felt she could never compare. And it had become your sole purpose in life to make her see otherwise. Laura hadn’t needed them. She hadn’t needed you. She had only needed someone to help her pull back the veil that had been clouding her vision.

And underneath that insecure, sheltered _child_ , had been a force to be reckoned with. Laura _was_ strong. Laura _was_ smart. And however misguided her instincts may have been, she had followed them unwaveringly. And you had to admire that, even now. Even now, looking back, when you knew that _you_ had been the one to blur her image of right and wrong, of good and evil. _You_ had been the one who had corrupted her instincts. You couldn’t blame her for anything that had happened.

A simple act of heroism had created a paradigm shift so intense that not even Laura had felt it shifting. It had been so subtle it almost hadn’t been there at all. Yet so powerful it had set into motion a catastrophic chain of events. A whisper on the side of a snowy mountain. The avalanche that had followed, no one could have ever expected. A simple doubt cast into the hearts of the most righteous of men, could turn the world on its head. So it seemed.

You had been that whisper.

The subtle shifting of snow. A rumbling deep within the mountain. And Laura and you – your relationship – had been the unsuspecting town that had lain at the foot of the slope. That happy little town that you had built in amidst the devastation that had surrounded you both. You had finally had a home. Laura had been that _home_. And neither of you had been aware of the icy apocalypse tearing its way down the mountain intent on smothering all of the light and warmth that you had found comfort in.

Because you had – found comfort in Laura. In the imperfection her innocence had allotted her. In the flawed way she had viewed the world. Because it had meant that she had been able to see _you_ as the hero, and not as the villain.

Still the shadow had been cast. A nucleolus of insecurity and self-doubt. The dichotomy of the way Laura had viewed you, and the way you had viewed yourself. The cell of your relationship had already begun to prepare itself for the inevitable. And you should have seen it coming, but hindsight really is twenty-twenty, even after four centuries of experience.

You should have put an end to it then and there. When you had realized that her hero worship might well have been donning its mask and parading itself as affection. You should have counted your losses, and left Laura to lead a normal life, but you had always been the selfish one.

So when you had lain together in the solarium, pointing out your favorite constellations and whispering the tragic anecdotes of how they had come to be, she had given herself to you fully. Had it been childish impatience or heat of the moment passion or haste to beat the next _ominous_ _something’s coming_ , you’ll never know. You only know that you had let yourself fall into her. Body and soul.

You had traced the contours of her innocence, with lips and fingertips. Melted into her, skin against skin, until you had been surrounded in her hopeless naivety. You had become the gray that shaded the lines of black and white in her mind. You had taken and taken, and she had given so freely. Everything.

And you had tried to be the hero she had so desperately believed you to be. Whispered words against her skin. Promises that had never been voiced had left your mouth in heavy pants and puffs of stream that had disappeared into the night. With your fingertips, you had signed your name at the bottom of a contract to protect her. From everything. From yourself.

Who would have known that you be the one who had needed protecting?

But like all things, the cracks had already been forming. No matter how much you had wanted to be her hero, you would never be anything more than the monster you had always been. And when that realization had hit you, you hadn’t been able to handle the adoring looks and the undeserved praise she had showered you with. The preparations had already been started. The delicate strands of DNA that had formed _one_ where two had been previously, had already begun to unhinge. Always so subtle. Never expected.

Had your relationship been under a microscope, you may have seen it coming. You may have seen the dark shade that had formed inside, preparing for the separation. But looking back on it now, you’re not really sure you could have done anything to stop it. Ell’s betrayal had left you desperately searching for the one person who could redeem your faith in humanity. She had left you broken. Damaged. Jaded. And Laura, Laura had been the thread that had slowly been mending your stone heart.

It had started with a simple wish, and a broken heart. Well, two broken hearts actually, but one had already been damaged…


	2. Prophase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura recounts the last several weeks, and the moment she realized, now, that everything began to fall apart. But Carmilla was still here. Still here with her. And that had to mean something. There had to be a light at the end of the tunnel, because she didn't know how long she could keep stumbling through the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Laura's POV on the beginning of the end. Still set in the library with Carmilla - flash backs are from Episodes 12-14.

_Prophase - Chromatin in the nucleus begins to condense and becomes visible in the light microscope as chromosomes. The nucleolus disappears. Centrioles begin moving to opposite ends of the cell and fibers extend from the centromeres. Some fibers cross the cell to form the mitotic spindle._

* * *

 It had been perpetuated by blindness. From one or both parties. Unwillingness to see through the other's eyes. To see the big picture.

_“Those who prefer their principles over their happiness; they refuse to be happy outside of the conditions they seem to have attached to their happiness. That sounds light and frothy.”_

_“It’s comforting. He understands that love doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone.”_

_“I think that’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard…”_

* * *

 

Carmilla always had a way of making you forget about the big picture. You had never really thought about it in the moment. Those moments when she would kiss you in the middle of a well-thought-out sentence, effectively dismantling every thought that had formed in your head. Because really, who needed the big picture when there were so many little moments forming as each second passed by.

Like when she’d asked you to run away with her – hypothetically of course, because if it hadn’t been hypothetical, then she’d have been asking you to dismiss a principle part of what made you very much who you were – and leave everything behind, you’d actually thought about it. Hypothetically of course. You’d allowed yourself to think about a life without murders or sisters. A life filled with endless hotel rooms and changing scenery. A life without failure or disappointment. A life in which you didn’t need to be saved from something at every turn.

And it had been a nice thought. A perfect little fantasy nestled within your mind. And then she had kissed you, taking your breath away and once again dismantling the pieces of the big picture that had been trying to form in your mind. And you had let her; you had let the fight within you die out a little, in exchange for this brief feeling of happiness – happiness that fell outside of the conditions you seem to have attached to your own happiness.

It clicked then. What she had been reading. Principles over happiness. For a fleeting moment, the big picture had settled in your mind. The universe opening up and revealing its secrets to you. But before you had even gotten the chance to take it all in, it was gone again. Melting away with the sliding of flesh upon flesh. And looking back, had you been able to grasp at those images just a second longer, everything could have been different. Because you were very much a person of principles, but that didn’t mean you were too far gone to notice when life was forcing you to choose between your morals and your happiness. Then anyway. Now? Maybe it’s a different story.

And you had filed that happy fantasy away in your brain. Hid it away in a cabinet that you’d placed in the section of your imagination in which you stored hypothetical moments. Because hypothetical wasn’t going to save the school. Hypothetical wasn’t going to fix what you had broken.

Feet once again firmly planted in reality, you had explained to her that, while it was a nice thought, it wasn’t who you were. You couldn’t just run away from the mess you had made. It wasn’t in your nature.

And while you have always been much better with words – words were safe and comfortable – you had been around Carmilla and LaFontaine enough to soak up at least part of their arguments about biology. About nature. About science and philosophy. You weren’t dumb, just maybe you weren’t that smart either. LaFontaine would have been able to see what had been happening. They would have been able to analyze it and catalogue it before it got out of control.

If being stuck in the library, surrounded by the science section, has taught you anything, it’s that a relationship is a living, breathing thing. With its own biology. Its own heartbeat. Its own pattern of growth and decay. You bury yourself in the books because it’s the only thing that can take your focus away from the way you can _feel_ Carmilla’s eyes on you. Always on you. Always searching. For what? You don’t know.

And after reading this particular section on cellular growth for the third time in a row, you look back thinking you should have _known_. You should have noticed that dark shadow that had formed. You should have known that when it disappeared it wasn’t because things had been fixed, but because it had nestled in deeper, too deep to see.

You should have seen the point where you had stopped functioning as a pair, and began to think as individual entities. Drifting apart like centrioles, being pulled to opposite poles. Your principles pulling you like a magnet, away from Carmilla – hers pulling her in the opposite direction.

You should have seen those little tears in the membrane surrounding you, allowing your secret thoughts and insecurities to come spilling out with a voice you hadn’t allotted them. But you had never been that smart. You made up for it with passion. So you thought, but maybe really in the long run, passion only gets you so far. Maybe certain people just weren’t meant to function on their own. Maybe you _did_ need someone taking care of you. Because obviously, you’d done a bang up job.

But you hadn’t seen it. Not then anyway. And maybe it was because you hadn’t known what you should have been looking for. Or maybe it was because you hadn’t known that you should have been looking at all. Or maybe it was just because every time you felt your eyes starting to open again, Carmilla had wrapped her strong arms around you, and pressed her body into yours. And all of those thoughts had been chased from your mind again.

You couldn’t blame her. Not really. Not anymore.

But you _had_ blamed her, which made the fact that she was here with you now, in the same room, separated only by the invisible lines that you had drawn, it made it that much harder.

You had seen her as a hero. You had _wanted_ her to be the hero. Your hero. But Carmilla, as strong and as smart and as passionate as she was – is – had only seen herself as the monster she’d always believed herself to be. The monster you had tried so desperately to show her was a mask. But you know now, that holding your own mirror up to someone, doesn’t allow that person to see themselves through your eyes, it only serves to reflect what they already see, at a much closer angle.

You could paint a portrait with words, so beautiful that the muscle of the eye could never comprehend it. But it wouldn’t change the fact that the brain would only reflect back the image that had already been carved out. Cold, hard eyes. Angular features and sharp, deadly teeth. Blood dripping from her chin. That is the image Carmilla saw when she looked into the mirror. She saw a monster. And your words would never be able to smooth those angles, or to wipe clean that blood.

So like magnets with like poles, you had drifted apart. Because how could you inhabit the same space as something that was constantly repelling you?

What you hadn’t realized then, was that she’d needed you. She’d needed your skewed view of the world. She’d needed you to believe that she wasn’t a monster. You’d never realized just how much she’d been holding onto that hope. That hope that you had given her. That hope that she could in fact, be something better than what she had been.

And you’d let that hope slip, if only for the briefest of moments. You had let it die. With Vordenburg’s words. His stupid anecdotes about how Carmilla had been a spoiler of virtue and a betrayer. How she had slaughtered his entire family. How she had betrayed the man that had hid her away, and kept her safe. Lies – you know that now. But you had allowed them to waver your faith in her, however briefly. And that – that was when everything had fallen apart. You just didn’t realize it, until now.

Carmilla had joked about history being fun, but there had been something hidden, deep within those dark eyes, that had you have looked a little closer, you would have noticed as pain. As betrayal. You had betrayed her with your thoughts. You had believed lies, and you had let those lies alter her image in your mind. For the briefest of moments, you had seen her as she saw herself. A monster.

And she had known. She had seen it written on your face. Had seen the reflection – cold, hard eyes, angular features, sharp teeth and blood dripping from her chin – in your own eyes. And the hope that you had given her had vanished – literally, in the blink of an eye.

Her love for you, had not waivered though. She was still protecting you, just – you realize now – from herself. She had pushed aside her own pain, and given you all she had.

_“I get that you’re conflicted right now, but I just – I don’t have the brain space to deal with you being all insecure and morally ambiguous right now. I need the kickass heroic vampire girlfriend. So can you please just be that?”_

_“Of course. Whatever you need.”_

You remember that conversation as vividly as if it had happened moments ago. The empty feeling in your chest stretched and twisted and shifted because it finally hit you. You did love her – do love her. You just never realized it, because you’d been looking for an image from a dream. Something that fit together perfectly. Something that most likely wasn’t even what love was meant to look like.

Love had its own biology. Its own heartbeat. An ever-changing mass of growth and decay. It had no rules or laws to follow. But it was not – as the fairy tales had often portrayed it to be – blind. It was not without reason. It wasn’t all consuming, or unwavering. It had its limits.

_“Carm, we really need less sulking and more strategizing here.”_

_“Do you even realize you’re asking me to betray my sister?”_

It should have been enough. It should have been enough to break through the righteous walls that you had built around yourself. The hurt in her voice. The betrayal in her eyes. It should have been enough. But it hadn’t been. It never was.

_“You took on the Dean and the anglerfish, you could totally go toe-to-toe with her.”_

_“No.”_

_“What?”_

_“No. I won’t do it. Find somebody else to play your hero.”_

And something inside of you had broken. Shifted. Slipped away into the tears that were forming in the membrane of your relationship. The memories and reasoning behind everything that the two of you had become, leaking away into nothingness.

Because now, you understand that love doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone.


	3. Prometaphase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? When both are not implicitly assumed to be indestructible, the answer becomes trivial – they destroy each other…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla's POV of the necessity of their breakup. Still set in the library - flash backs are from Episode 15.

_Prometaphase - The nuclear membrane dissolves, marking the beginning of prometaphase. Proteins attach to the centromeres creating the kinetochores. Microtubules attach at the kinetochores and the chromosomes begin moving._

* * *

 

It had fallen apart with a few careless words, a history lesson, and hopelessness…

_“Just because I was willing to sacrifice myself to save you doesn’t mean I’m willing to betray my sister. Doesn’t make me some crusader.”_

_“Carm, why are you doing this? I need your help.”_

_“I’m doing this because I’d like to think that you could love me instead of some romantic ideal you’ve made in your head.”_

_“Romantic ideal? Because I think you’re better than your long history of murdering and callously discarding people?"_

_“Is that what you think of me?”_

* * *

 

Of course that was what Laura had thought about you. Why would the girl think anything else? You were, after all, no better than your long history of murdering and callously discarding people. You were, after all, a monster. A creature that only survived by draining the life out of those weaker than yourself. A parasite. You were a parasite. You couldn’t survive without a host. You depended on another living, breathing creature to keep you from perishing. You had always seen yourself as a monster, but this was the first time you had ever viewed yourself as a parasite. The analogy was not one that you enjoyed.

Laura sat across the library from you. Books scattered around her as she read about god knows what. Just trying to pass the time. Anything to keep the silence at bay. The silence that had been there since you had both stumbled into this wretched place. The lines were clearly drawn, you would stay on your side, and she would stay on hers.

Laura had taken the side with the books and the candles, most likely because what need had monsters for such things as entertainment and light. You were a creature of the night. You were the darkness itself. Your entertainment of course, was brooding. And brood you did, over the fact that Laura had so easily let that hope slip away. That hope that you were _more_ than just a monster.

And it hadn’t mattered that Laura had never asked to hear _your_ side of the story. She had been so wrapped up in the fact that you had slaughtered that man’s _poor family_. The man that had loved you and taken care of you, and in return, you had just carelessly slaughtered everyone that he knew. She had never even _asked_ to hear your side of the tale. She had just taken Vordenburg’s words at face value. And it should have been your first clue. It hadn’t mattered to Laura. Your side. The fact that Barren Vordenburg’s ancestor had been a necrophiliac who had grave-robbed your corpse from its tomb. Who had kept you starved and chained up in a dungeon so that he could violate you whenever he saw fit. That hadn’t mattered of course. You hadn’t offered up your side of the story. What would it change? That hope had already wavered…

None of it had ever really mattered. The hope that you had relied upon so deeply had wavered – if it had ever really been there at all – when she’d asked you to betray your sister. It had all but vanished with Vordenburg’s tale.

Mattie had been all you had left. Centuries of memories and histories and experiences. You’d still had Mattie. Mother was gone. Will was gone. Mattie had been the one link to your past. And Laura had been asking you to sever that link, for what? Because her and her half-wit friends _assumed_ your sister was up to no good – something diabolical. There hadn’t even been any hard evidence. Just some half-baked hypotheses about the Silas charter and budget cuts and the Corve Company.

Laura had wanted you to betray all of the history you had with the beautiful creature you had willingly called _sister._ Laura would never understand the bond that grows over that much shared experience. She would never understand the emotions – you dare say, the love – that comes with _choosing_ your family. Laura had just wanted you to throw that all away. For the sake of a few human lives that had literally meant _nothing_ to you.

You hadn’t cared about the students at Silas. You had only cared about _her_. And now? What? What did you care about now? _You_ had been the one to end it. And looking at her profile in the dim candlelight only served to fortify that. You’d only cared about her. You only _care_ about her. You’d cared about Mattie. But Mattie was gone now…

_“That’s part of who I am Laura. So is Mattie. You can’t expect all that to just evaporate because I love you.”_

_“If you really loved me then you’d stay. I need you to be the kind of person who stays and fights.”_

_“You haven’t listened to a single word I’ve said. I’m done.”_

You had said the words. The words that had been perched precariously on the tip of your tongue for _weeks_. And Laura had stared back at you, eyes widening in realization. But instead of acknowledging your confession, she had simply used it as tinder to fuel her arguments.

And _that_ had been your breaking point. Your moment of crystal clear awareness. Laura Hollis didn’t love you. Laura Hollis would _never_ love you, because she would never allow herself to love a monster. And that is what you are.

You had left. You had walked out on her. The one the thing you had promised yourself you wouldn’t do. You had walked away from Laura Hollis. Betty had left. Her mother had left. Her father – while he may have still been there physically – had left. You were supposed to have been the one constant thing in her life, the one thing that wasn’t changing or shifting or _leaving_. And you had left.

The nuclear membrane of your relationship had dissolved, leaving the bits and pieces of your collective romantic DNA to float about. Biology prefers things to be accomplished in an organized manner. Biology doesn’t like for DNA to just _float_ about. So when your centromeres had become kinetochores – letting the strand of DNA split right down the middle – the mitotic spindle had released its fibers, and they had attached themselves to Laura and you, pulling, in opposite directions.

Always in opposite directions. Nothing had ever been pushing you toward each other. Not the universe. Not your family. Not her friends. Everything had seemed to be pulling you both in opposite directions.

Laura’s principles had been the immovable object, and your ambivalence? The unstoppable force. A classic paradox of shield and spear. It was a well-known paradox derived from the omnipotence paradox addressed in so many of your philosophy classes. _Can God create a stone so heavy, that not even God is strong enough to lift it?_ There was no answer of course. So what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? When both are _not_ implicitly assumed to be indestructible, the answer becomes trivial – they destroy each other…

You weren’t an idiot. You know that your moral ambiguity and Laura’s strict principles had been the fibers tugging you away from each other. But ethics had never been something you had ever given much credit. Morals and ethics were derived from someone’s convoluted ideas of right and wrong – passed down from generation to generation until they had become _law_.

Who’s to say whether or not it is _ethical_ to steal – what if it were the _only_ means of feeding your children? Who’s to say whether or not it is _ethical_ to kill – what if it was in self-defense, or an accident? Who’s to say whether or not it is _ethical_ to cheat – what if no amount of studying could ever wrap your brain around the topic? There were always shades of gray. So yes, you’d never given ethics much credit.

You’d left. Was it ethical? Self-preservation in the face of the irrevocable pain you would cause by doing just that? Who’s to say…

You hadn’t gone far, of course. She hadn’t known that. You had sat perched outside of the window, because even though you had chosen to walk away, it hadn’t meant that you would ever allow any harm to come to her. You hadn’t been lying. You had loved her. Deeply.

But your own sentiment had been your downfall, ultimately. Because protecting her, meant being near her, and that meant that you had heard the hope slip from her voice.

_“So I think – Carm and I just broke up… and – was I not supposed to want her to be better? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”_

She had been talking to that Goddamn camera again. Of course. The camera that had always gotten more attention from Laura than you ever would. It seemed trifling – being jealous of a piece of technology – but you had always wanted her to shut the camera off just _once_ and just _be_ with you. Be in the moment with you.

_“I mean, it’s supposed to go: you love someone – and I’m not even saying that I loved her, because we were only together for like, a month and that would be crazy – but… if I did… wasn’t she supposed to try and be better?”_

Laura had never seen it. She had never seen you try. Her eyes had been blinded by her own righteousness. You had killed your _own_ mother for her, and there she was, sitting there talking to that damn camera, and stating that you had never even _tried_ to be better for her.

You remember letting your eyes slip closed and shaking your head. Laura Hollis didn’t love you. Laura Hollis had _never_ loved you. Hero worship. That’s all it had ever been.

_“I mean… the story goes: you fall in love with a monster and they stop being all monstery! They redeem themselves right? The story isn’t just: fall in love with a monster. That would be a stupid story. I don’t wanna be part of that stupid story.”_

The word had hit you like a ton of bricks. Laura had _never_ used that word to describe you before. Even when she’d just found out that you were a vampire, she had never called you a monster. Laura had always been the one trying so desperately to show you that you _weren’t_ a monster.

The tears had slipped from your eyes as you listened to the hope slip from her voice – the hope that you could redeem your past. False promises. Empty desires. Hopelessness.

So what if the story had gone: fall in love with a monster. Wasn’t it the _love_ that was the story after all? Why did everyone have to constantly redeem themselves? If you fell in love with a schizophrenic were you automatically _supposed_ to wish that they’d stop hearing voices? Wasn’t that a part of them you had fallen in love with? If they stopped hearing voices, didn’t that change them so intrinsically that you might not even love them at all anymore? Love doesn’t try to change you. It just is. If Laura had fallen in love with you, she’d fallen in love with the monster inside of you as well. Why would she immediately discount that? Without that monster…who would you be?

Because Laura had been young and naïve. Her idea of love had still been skewed with the great romances of fairy tales and classic novels. The kind of love that didn’t exist.

She had spent the rest of the day moping around the room, listening to sad music and hugging your leather vest like it was a prized possession, and it had brought back the _tiniest_ glimmer of hope. Hope that maybe – somewhere buried deep underneath everything – she did love you. All of you…

And then as if someone had flipped a switch, you’d been forgotten. Your relationship put on the back burner – again – replaced by the next big story. The next big break in Laura’s investigation of Silas’s paranormal and the murders of the newspaper kids. So easily you’d been replaced.

How easy it had been for Laura’s DNA to drift to one side, leaving yours to float to the other. Ell had left you without so much as an afterthought when she’d found out you were a vampire. Laura had left you too – even though you had been the one to walk away – when she’d realized that you hadn’t fit in the mold of you that she had given you in her imagination. You hadn’t fit into the shining armor that she had set aside for her White Knight. You hadn’t come up riding that stallion.

What was it about you that made it so easy for people to walk away? To forget? So Laura had wanted to forget you? You had been dead set on making sure that it wasn’t going to be an easy task. So you’d gone back. You’d marched right back into that apartment and stood before the girl, hands on your hips, chest puffed out as if you had to defend your territory.

_“Hey, you came back. I wasn’t sure if you were going to come back.”_

_“Of course I came back. This is my mother’s apartment, and I stole it fair and square.”_

It had been a trivial and childish move, you’d admit. But you had refused to be forgotten and replaced so easily. The amazon had been encroaching into your territory not ten seconds after you had left. And Laura had welcomed her so easily. Welcomed how _normal_ she was. How eager she had been to follow Laura’s every command. How _human_ she was.

So Laura had thought you were a monster? You had been perfectly content to show her exactly how monstrous you could be.

Learning history was fun, after all…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://yesthatcape.tumblr.com
> 
> @CarmillasCape


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